Snippet

As is quite often the case, Peggy glanced in the fridge this evening around 8:30 pm to find that the kids had managed to entirely deplete our milk supply. Dutifully, I slipped on my Chuck Taylors, grabbed my jacket and headed out to our corner Korean deli for a late evening errand I've run a thousand times before.

The cold hit me before I'd even left the lobby, but the visuals didn't match up. As I peered outside, I suddenly saw huge, ping-pong ball-sized snowflakes that I clearly hadn't noticed from our windows upstairs. I stepped out into the deep chill and observed a spastic, wriggling galaxy of small white projectiles spiraling around me. Under closer momentary scrutiny, I found that this wasn't snow at all. Someone had evidently taken a full box of white packing peanuts and shredded paper and blithely tossed it into the trajectory of oncoming traffic. The contents of same -- liberated from their cardboard confinement by a speeding cab -- now swirled around in the brusque February wind, creating a strange ersatz blizzard. It seemed oddly fitting being that it certainly felt cold enough for a snow storm.

As the winds picked up the little styrofoam bits and spewed them into the air like a plume of tiny sparks, people actually stopped in the street to marvel at this strangely graceful shower of litter. One block to the west, a trio of fire-engines completed the surreal scene by sending their warm, flashing red lights streaking across the facades of the brownstones of East 9th Street, creating an improvised facsimile of the holiday glow of two months past. A shredded plastic garbage bag was swept up in the wind and joined the frantic dance as I ducked into our deli.

Seconds later, as I stepped back out into the street with a newly procured half-gallon of milk, only scattered bits of styrofoam remained from the impromptu display, the rest of which having blown north up University Place. I zipped my jacket up and jogged back to our front door and back out of the blustery cold.